World

Typhoon Hagupit weakens but flooding, high winds kill at least 21

Typhoon Hagupit was still bringing heavy rain to the central Philippines on Monday, three days after it first made landfall in the country as a Category 3 typhoon. The heavy rains are falling in the flood-prone capital of Manila, home to about 12 million people.

So far, the storm has killed at least 21 across several islands, and driven more than a million to evacuation shelters. However, the storm has not caused the widespread flooding and landslide damage that weather forecasters and emergency management officials had feared.

Although the storm was once a feared super typhoon, it has largely spared the Philippines from the devastation wrought last year from Super Typhoon Haiyan. The two storms have presented dramatically different hazards. Haiyan was one of the most intense storms on record to hit land, at high-end Category 5 intensity, and it drove a 17-foot storm surge into the city of Tacloban, killing at least 7,000 people.

In contrast, Typhoon Hagupit made landfall as a Category 3 storm, and has taken three days so far to crawl from Samar Island to Luzon. This slow movement has made heavy rainfall, rather than a major storm surge, Hagupit's most formidable weapon.

So far, the highest rainfall totals include 17.06 inches at Catbalogan and 15.55 inches at Borongan, both on Samar Island.

The 21 fatalities includes 16 villagers who drowned in Eastern Samar province, where the typhoon made its first landfall, according to the Philippine Red Cross. The government disaster-response agency has reported only five other deaths, including three people who died of hypothermia, saying it was still verifying other reported casualties.

Hagupit made another in a series of landfalls near San Juan in Batangas Province, about 60 miles south of Manila, with maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour. The storm first made landfall in eastern Samar on Saturday, with sustained winds of 125 miles per hour.

In the capital, police officers were asking people to stay away from a promenade beside Manila Bay for safety reasons.

More than 2,800 villagers moved to emergency shelters in San Juan, a low-lying and flood-prone town popular for its beach resorts, including 220 people huddled inside a gymnasium as torrential rains pounded.

"It's really scary if you've watched what happened during Haiyan," said Amy de Guzman, a 34-year-old mother of three who sought refuge in the gymnasium. "I hope the storm blows away from here as far as possible."

While officials expressed relief that the typhoon had not caused major damage in Tacloban and other central cities that were devastated by Haiyan, they warned that it was still barreling across the southern tip of the main northern island of Luzon, where Manila is located. The storm was expected to exit Tuesday into the South China Sea.

Hagupit (pronounced HA'-goo-pit), which first made landfall in Eastern Samar late Saturday, was moving slowly at about five miles per hour, and could dump heavy rain that could possibly trigger landslides and flash floods, according to forecasters.

Many of those in eastern areas who evacuated to shelters started to troop back home after the typhoon had blown past their provinces, Philippine Red Cross Secretary-General Gwendolyn Pang said.

Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada said more than 5,000 residents of a shantytown on the edge of Manila Bay have been evacuated due to possible storm surges. Sandbags were stacked along a portion of a seawall to prevent possible storm surges in Manila Bay from spilling into a scenic boulevard and a tourist belt of restaurants and hotels.

"We've prepared and trained for this," Estrada told The Associated Press, adding that his greatest fear was widespread flooding. Metropolitan Manila has a population of more than 12 million people.

Like villagers in the central Philippines, Estrada said Manila residents were readily moving to safety because of haunting memories of Haiyan.

One of the strongest typhoons on record to hit land, Haiyan's tsunami-like storm surges leveled entire villages and left more than 7,300 people dead or missing in November last year.

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